Family Room

So now I can let out a big sigh of relief. For the entire 2 1/2 years that we have lived in this house, the family room as been my nemesis.

Yes, my nemesis.

No matter what I did with it, it always felt lacking, not comfortable enough, not situated right, not homey enough.

I went through 3 different sets of couches.

I only bought one of them, off of craigslist for super cheap.

The first set I already had, the third set was given to us.

The last set, a couch and chair, are this beautiful yellow. They used to be my mother in law's, who happens to have wonderful taste in everything.

So when she offered them, I jumped.

And then within a month, we had written on, spilled on, and generally destroyed what was once beautiful.

So I schemed and imagined how I could fix that.

Slipcovers are expensive, good ones.
I might be able to make some, but the material would still be 200 bucks, and who knows how it would turn out.

So then, while perusing the internet, I came upon some ikea couches that had similiar lines.
And Ikea's white slipcovers are super cheap.

So I figured I had nothing to lose.

So for 50 bucks for the sofa, and 40 dollars for the chair, I was able to slipcover the yellow couches.

And the red couch leftover from sometime in the middle of my decorating angst, I just put a white coverlet on it, leftover from a bedroom redo.


Now, I know you're saying, white? why would you buy white?!
Because I can take them off and bleach them. That's why.

And for 90 dollars total, I would have taken almost any color.

I bought this frame at Goodwill for 2 bucks. It was gold.
I spraypainted it white, and then put chalkboard paint on the cardboard backing.
Yup, that chalkboard is just cardboard.

Then I spray painted the frames on top of the red door and pulled a lamp in from another room.

The silver plate things on the wall I got at Target for 6 bucks total.
The apothecary jars were kind of a splurge at 10 bucks each, but the taller one has a bird on it. I mean really, a bird? I had to have it.

The oval silver plate was just the same white one that has always been hanging there, I just spray painted it silver.



The curtains, I made about a year ago. I loved the fabric and wanted them in the family room, but at the time they just didn't work.

But with white slipcovers and a few subtle changes, they work fabulous now.



And lastly, my one furniture purchase for this room.
We have never owned a coffee table in the 14 years we've been married.
But now that this room no longer holds a t.v., I thought it would be fantastic to have something to play board games on.

So I found this at Goodwill for 25 dollars. I primed and painted it, replaced the busted knobs, and voila!

And just so you know, I actually don't keep a bowl of baubles in reachable distance of my 2 and 4 year olds.

But a girl can dream of being able to one day, so I added that just for the picture.





So there you have it. Everything was either a Goodwill purchase and repainted, on clearance, or unbelievably cheap.

I think over the course of a year I spent 225 dollars. But that included the slipcovers and the fabric for the curtains.
It's possible to have the room you love on a budget, you just have to be patient as you look for the perfect things, and be a tad bit neurotic.

But that's me, on a budget and a tad bit neurotic. Nice to meet you!

Have a great weekend.

Oh, and Happy Birthday Maile, my sistah!

And then there was one

(In case you're wondering, I refuse to cut her hair. We try to pull it out of her face most of the time, but I just can't handle it yet, so there.)

The older 4 are all at school.

Henry is at preschool.
And there is just Nora at home with me.

It's been a long time since I have had blocks of time with just one child.
And what am I doing with that time?

Sitting at the computer while she watches t.v.

LAME!

I'm lame.

I love my little girl.
I just want to snuggle her and kiss her all the time.

And I would love to lay on the couch with her and do nothing but giggle and watch her favorite shows while we eat snacks.

But I have stuff to do.

Nothing as important as snuggling with Nora, but still, stuff that needs to get done.

Laundry, dishes, shower, clean my bathroom, laundry, tidying up, more laundry.

What is one to do?

What do you do when you don't want to do anything?

When the draw of your sweet 2 year old is more powerful than anything else, but everything else still has to get done at some point?

Arrgghhh.

Forget about it. I'm snuggling.
Have a great day!

P.S. I was totally rejected. She didn't want to snuggle, she wouldn't share her pillow or her blankie, and she flat out told me that she doesn't like me.
Awesome.
I am the best mother ever!
But I still smooched, cuddled and loved on her for the whole 2 minutes she would let me.
Ah well, at least the laundry still loves me.

Parenting 101: Letting boys be boys

My two sweet boys are 4 1/2 years apart.

So Charlie has had to wait patiently for Henry to get old enough to wrestle with.

Of course, Charlie has to submit alot because he's laughing so hard.




Oh, if you could have heard the giggles from Charlie and the growls from Henry.
And, what's with Charlie's super dirty socks?


I'm pretty sure Charlie is just pretending to let Henry dominate him. *cough, ahem*



I don't know that brothers bond as fast any other way.

Which is why I let them do it.

Well, that and it's super funny to watch.



Charlie is a good sport, and Henry has no idea that Charlie's letting him win.

I love my boys.

The Great Blackout-2010

Last night the wind howled and blew as if it would strip the trees of all their leaves.

Jeff got home from work and said "I think I should get gas for the generator."

As he filled the gas cans, the lights flickered both at the gas station and at home.

We could feel it coming. High wind here in Maple Valley means the inevitable loss of power.

Luckily I had gathered all my candles earlier in the day. Some premonition perhaps?

So when the lights finally gave their final bow and went out completely, I was ready with candles.

The children were not ready for the smothering darkness that ensued. What with the loss of the little lights from the answering machine and the time on the stove, it was black at it's pitchiest.

Some terrified screaming could be heard from an upstairs bedroom, so Jeff quickly gathered all the chicks together with us in the kitchen.

Being that it was a slightly traumatic event for the littlest ones, we broke out our car emergency kit and let them eat some snacks. Since, you know, it was an emergency of the emotional kind.

We then discussed bedtime, which was met by much wailing and gnashing of teeth when we suggested that they sleep in their own room.

Even the oldest balked at the idea of sleeping in utter darkness without us.

So we found our assortment of sleeping bags and extra blankets and bunkered down for the night in the master bedroom.

When silence finally prevailed around 11:30, we all drifted off to sleep.

When we awoke, there was still no power. So Jeff headed out to start up the generator.
It seemed that the powers that be, knew he was about to fire up the gas guzzling machine, and at that moment, the power came back on. True story.

Of course by this time, school has been cancelled, so much rejoicing occured.

So the great blackout of 2010 lasted about 12 hours.
Which means tonight, I only have to share my room with Jeff:)










(It was honestly nothing. In years past, areas have been without power for 6 or more days. But we are preparing for a more substantial loss of power later in the winter.)

Nora's Room

First of all, let me tell you that my four younger children have all switched bedrooms more than a few times.

We try to make things work with sleep schedules, bedtimes and boy-girl ratios.

So the room that Nora is now in, was at one time Anne Marie's room. Then Nora moved in with her. Then, when that wasn't working, Anne Marie moved out and Nora now resides in this room.

When it was still Anne Marie's room, I worked painstakingly on the wainscot look around the bottom of the wall. I didn't have money for real wainscotting, or even beadboard wallpaper. So I handpainted the little lines around the whole room.

It took days. Which for me, anything that takes days is slow torture.

But I am happy with the final product.




Now, those curtains used to be in my family room. They have traveled with me from house to house and state to state for the last 10 years. They are my favorite Ikea purchase ever. They have been in multiple master bedrooms, living rooms, and now Nora's room.

The white frame with the daisies was also in the family room, holding a picture of my children.
The picture of my children is still there, but with a different frame. (Hopefully I'll show you the family room next week, if you care. You do care, right?)

This next picture also holds some items from my family room. The star coat rack, the lamp, and the paper flowers, all used to be in my family room as well.

The birds have always been in Nora's room. My lovely friend Teresa made them for us, and they are one of my absolute favorite things.



This wall mural has an interesting back story. Well, it's interesting to me anyway. I have wanted to put owls in Nora's bedroom for about a year now. They are whimsical and sweet and easy to find at the moment. Target has a really adorable toddler bed set that has owls on the comforter. They also have a matching wall hanging, pillow and lamp.

Well I knew there was no reason to buy the bed set. Nora refuses, and I mean it literally, refuses to sleep with anything other than that white and blue flower blankie you see in the picture. She will cry and wail and not go to sleep until she has it. So why buy her anything else, no matter how cute?

But she loved the little pillow. And I loved the wall hanging. But I did not want to pay 25 dollars for an 11 x 17 wall hanging that while cute, wasn't quite big enough for the space. So I decided to be a copy cat. I am not an artist. I can't draw anything our of my own head besides stick people. But I am pretty decent at copying things. So I took of picture of the wall hanging with my phone,
praticed drawing it onto a piece of paper, and then using that as a visual guide, I painted it onto the wall.

This was an easy subject matter to do this with. The style is naturally whimsical and therefore not perfect in it's lines or color. So I was able to pull it off with a fair amount of success. Here is the link to the "real" one.



And Nora loves that I colored on the wall. She kept doing a little dance while singing, "I like it, I like it, I like it."

That little song and dance were worth all the hard work.

Finally, this chandelier. I bought this chandelier years ago at Target on clearance. It was 10 bucks. I didn't know what I wanted to do with it, but I knew I loved it-passionately. So I bought it and hung onto it. I'm a big believer in buying things that you really love. If you really love something it will fit in your home, I promise, it's true.

So finally, this dreamy little girls bedroom presented the perfect backdrop for a pink, fake crystal chandelier.

I even wired it all myself. Jeff helped me a little at the end when it required one set of hands to hold it while the other put things in place. But I will tell you, nothing is an empowering as realizing I can wire something by myself.



So there you have it folks. Reusing stuff from another room in the house, plus a little paint, and we have a fun, sweet, whimsy filled bedroom.

Now, if she'll just love it until she a tween at least.......

Sassy mouth

*Post Edit*: I am not actually worried about Nora saying butt. I don't like the word, I think it sounds kind of crass. But I don't think it's pepper in the mouth kind of language. I just found it super funny that her teasing Henry sounded more like hairy butt. Sorry if you thought I was worried about this. I'm totally not.*


I was supposed to show you pictures of other things I've been working on.


But instead I have chosen to share with you my 2 year old's new found ability to torment her brother.


Yesterday, for some unknown reason, Nora started saying "butt, butt, butt, butt".


Now, we don't use that word in our house. We really don't. Well, sometimes I do, but I'm working on it, ok?! And I try not to let anyone hear me when I say it.


Anyway, Nora continued with her recitation of this "naughty" word.


It bothered Henry to no end.


In fact he tattled on her.


"Mommmmm, Nora is saying butt."


Me. "Nora, we don't say butt."


Nora. "Butt, butt, butt, butt"


But then she took it to new heights once she figured out that it caused a reaction. She started getting Henry's attention first by saying his name, followed by saying butt. Trying super hard to irritate him.


However, she does not pronounce Henry correctly yet.(she leaves out the N)


So it came out sounding more like "hery! butt! hery! butt! hery! butt!"


I could not make this stuff up if I tried!

What do you do when it is a two year old saying this stuff?

I didn't want to bring more attention to by making a big deal out of it, and laughing certainly wasn't helping.

So I just walked away, and Hery seemed to realize that ignoring it was the best bet as well.

And then I took their picture, which will always make the center of attention baby of the family completely forget everything else.

When I get bored

When I get bored, I redecorate.

And I don't mean bored as in "I have nothing to do, look at poor me sitting around all day."

No. I NEVER get that kind of bored.

But I get bored with looking at the same thing over and over. So I do things like change the mantel.

My sister can attest to my decorating neurosis.

While visiting with her family this last weekend, I made her help me rearrange the furniture in my family room, and I bored her for a good half an hour with tales of my sofa dilemma, and colors and what should go where and why I feel nuts all the time and spend hours thinking about or staring at parts of my house that aren't quite right yet.

She asked, "Is this what it's like in your head all the time?"

Um, yes.

"Well, it's exhausting."

Yes, yes it is.

As I rearranged my living room, I took old things down, or put them in new places, I added a few cheap Target and Goodwill finds, and overall I am really happy about the new direction the family room is taking.

But as I took stuff down, I kept saying "This would be cute in Nora's room."

When I was done, I had a good pile going for her room and I am now also in the middle of semi-recorating her room as well. Pictures to follow sometime this week. Hopefully of the family room too.

This redecorating frenzy started with my kitchen. I love my kitchen. I love the colors and all the stuff that would make other people crazy to look at it all the time.

But I also was needing a change in there. A change in a kitchen without painting and with no budget you say? How do you do such a thing.

I just took the doors off of some of my cupboards

What?! Are you crazy? you ask.

No.

Let me show you.

The photos are not very good quality, but you get the idea.

It was exactly the facelift I needed. It did cost me about 20 bucks to find a few white dishes and that awesome red lamp from Goodwill to fill in the gaps, but we use every single thing in that cupboard. None of it is decorative only.

I didn't want kitchen cupboards that I couldn't use. How stupid would that be? But I arranged them in what I felt was an aesthetically pleasing way, and we use most everything on a daily basis.

I was also able to display some of my crystal that we DON"T use everyday, by mixing it with things we do use at least weekly.

So here is a before:

And after:

I also had to rearrange my drawers and placement of things on the counter a little too to accomodate where I moved the baking and lunch centers. But I am happy with the way everything is working.

It's not for everybody. Many people need clean, simple lines and this would feel like too much visual clutter. But I'm not everybody. I'm me, and I like it.

That's how I approach decorating in general. If I like it, then whatev to how other people feel about it. I mean, really, I have to live with it, no one else. Well...my family does too, but they just have to live with it too I guess.

And I'm not saying I totally discount other people's opinions. I have neighbors and my sister and sister in law who decorate completely different than I do. But when I am stuck on a color or pattern or arrangement, I like to ask them so that I can get a fresh perspective. It helps that they all know me so well, so that their advice mingles well with my style.

But ultimately, I do what I like.

And so should you.

When I first took the doors off and arranged things, I would close my eyes,jump around the corner,and then open them real quick so that I could be happily surprised everytime I walked in my kitchen.

True story.

That's how decorating should make you feel, I say.

I love getting new ideas. Taking the doors off is not my own original idea. I first saw it here.But I made it my own by adding my own flare to it.

There is so much that can be done with little to no money and a little creativity.

How do you decorate that is unique to you?

I love new ideas, so please, please share.

Now I'm off for more of what I obviously can't get enough of.

See you tomorrow.

If they just listened to everything I said.......

Right after we bought our fancy schmancy camera, I threatened everyone with pain and torture if they touched it, pressed a button on it, picked it up or heaven forbid, took pictures with it!

But if they listened to everything I said, then I wouldn't get pictures like this:





Or this:



Or be still my heart, this:



On a sort of related note, Jeff's younger sister had her first baby on Saturday. A beautiful, pink, round little baby boy that I got to hold for close to an hour.

Then I spent the next half an hour after we left the hospital trying to talk Jeff into two more babies.

He wasn't convinced.

"Just two more?"

"No."

"How about one."

"No."

"How about a boy and a girl. Twins!"

"No."

"Please?"

"No."

This coming from the guy, who on Saturday morning cleaned out the garage, and practically did backflips as we loaded baby stuff into the car to take to Goodwill. While I moped and attempted a tear or two for sympathy.

That's right. Cuz who could stand having anymore of this:


Or this:




Or this:



Or this:



It's called emotional blackmail. And I'm preeety sure it doesn't work on Jeff and at all.

And this is why~


Jeff has a really good memory.
But you can't blame a girl for trying, right?

Mornings

Was it Garfield that always said he hated mornings? Or was that Mondays? Same difference I guess.

Well, as is tradition for the women in my family, I hate mornings. And we're also speed readers. But that's another post.

I much prefer to stay up late and get up late. Funny, cuz my dad and my brother are opposite of my mom and sister and I. They go to bed early and get up early, always. Keno used to play the piano outside my bedroom at 6 in the morning so that someone would get up with him. Nice.

When I was in college, I could easily sleep in until noon. Sometimes even on the days I had class:)

But then I got married and had children. And suddenly sleeping in was 7. Seven! What the heck.
I thought being a stay at home mom meant sleeping in and doing whatever I wanted. Ha! Double ha!

And then came time for Kate to start school. And I had to get up about the same but it was harried and rushed. Instead of lounging in our pajamas for hours in the morning, she had to be fed, dressed and out the door.

At this point in my life, I now have 4 children in school. The older two in middle school leave for the bus at 7:30.
After they are gone, I get everyone else up, and then out the door at 8:30.

Next year will be earlier when the junior high bus leaves at 7:15. Aack!

So traditionally, I am a stress case in the mornings. "Get your shoes on, brush your teeth, hurry or we'll be late for the bus. Where's your backpack, did you get your lunch?"

And then we run out pel mel and usually make it in time. But not without some irritation and dirty looks from me. Not nice.

I would repeatedly tell Charlie and Anne Marie, "When I tell you what you need to be doing, it's because I know what time it is and how much time til we leave and I really need you to listen." This said while my voice progressively gets louder and screechier.

But then I found the thing that has both saved me and irritates the you know what out of me.

The Wii.





I can tell them now that if they are fed, dressed, teeth brushed, shoes on, and completely ready to go, then they can play the Wii BEFORE school.

And it's worked. I kind of hoped it wouldn't because I just hate video games.
But it did, and now the morning is a lot less stressed because they mostly get completely ready without being told.

*sigh*

This proves why the 50's were better, back then I would have been the one in control.

But I've been replaced as the most motivating thing in the house by, the Wii.

How do you get your children out the door every morning without a lot of threatening or wailing and gnashing of teeth? Or are you going to make me feel better and describe a similiar scenerio?

Do tell.

Fall Mantel

This is my first year decorating my mantel for anything other than Christmas.

Weird, I know.

I've known and heard of lots of people who decorate for Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, Valentines and the 4th of July.

I was just never one of those people. It seemed like too much work and effort.

But then I started to get sick of seeing my mantel the exact same everyday.

Sorry for the fuzzy picture, it's all I could find.


So while lovely, I found I was starting to get tired of looking at the same stuff everyday.

Then we got a flat screen t.v.
That helped for a little while.

Then I got tired of that being the focal point of the room and I made Jeff take it out.

But then I was left with a gaping hole above the fireplace, and though I knew what I wanted there, I had to be patient and find it. Because once I found it, the decorating possibilites would open right up.

So until then I decorated for Halloween with some lights and other Halloween-y stuff. Which I didn't take a picture of, so you'll just have to take my word for it. And it helped transition that gaping hole into something fun for the holidays.

And then it happened. Jeff found what I was looking for one day when he took a different way home. (fate, kismet?)

There, at a road side "antique" store, he saw probably a hundred old shutters.

Big, tall shutters. Large enough to fill that big empty space.

And the best part? While a little grody and dirty, they were already this beautiful turquoisy blue color.

The guy told us that they came from an old hotel (brothel) in Singapore. That creeped me out a little bit. So I've decided to pretend they came off an old plantation house in the south instead.
Ya with me?

So after scraping and pressure washing to get all the old loose, lead paint off, they were ready to display.


Stick a wreath on the front, or a large paper heart, or an American flag, and you have presto change-o decor options.

Don't you love it?

I do a little dance inside everytime I look at those shutters.

I love how they're not perfect. That they look old and weathered but that the blue is still so lovely and vibrant.

As my friend Daisy said "they just say "Amy"

I would have to agree.


What have you done with your mantel? Put a link in the comments so we can all check it out.

I wish it was the 1950's.

Ever feel like you live in the wrong decade?

Ever wish you could go back in time and experience a different way of life?

I imagine most of my life would have been exactly the same in 1950 as it is now.

Stay at home mom who:

Has lots of kids
Bakes her own bread
Has dinner on the table when hubby gets home.
Cleans.
Makes the children's lunches.
Breakfast on the table every morning.
Active at church.
Some college but gave it up when babies started arriving.
Loves to chat with the neighborhood ladies.

But I would not have been a mom who:

Had to say, "who are you texting?"
Put your DS away.
It's time to get off the Wii.
Drove 800 miles a day ferrying her kids everywhere.
Shook her head at the how short skirts have become.
Had to put a passcode on the computer and the television to protect her kids from smut. (yes, I said smut!)

Of course I probably would have complained that Rock n' Roll was too loud and I would have had a neat and tidy bomb shelter built to withstand any missile crisis. I would have set out the bottles for the milk man every week and put aside everything else to watch Ed Sullivan.

But I would have done it in saddle shoes and the original skinny pants.

So yes, sometimes I feel like I was an adult in the wrong decade. And I guess that's just gonna have to be ok. Because I'm positive there is a reason I was born when I was.

So what decade would you like to live in? And don't worry, I will still be your friend if you say the 70's.

Halloween

Our family loves Halloween. I don't want to say it is our favorite, because Christmas probably claims that title, but it is a close second.

We just like to dress up. Sometimes for no reason.

We have 4 boxes of costumes. We outfitted all 4 of my sister's kids and probably could have outfitted an entire other family as well.

I'm just saying, we like costumes.

So for the annual Trunk-or-Treat/Harvest party at church on Saturday night, we did our thing.


Kate, in her first ever slightly scary costume, The Queen of Halloween


Julia as a mercenary. 50 points if you can tell me in the comments what a mercenary is.




Charlie as the much beloved Harry Potter. Isn't he so dang cute?



Henry started out as Buzz Lightyear, but then he saw Jeff's dagger for his costume and wanted to be a ninja. Well, strangely enough we did not have a ninja costume lying around, so we went for Ninja Robin. The dagger makes all the difference you know.



Anne Marie went as a witch. She is doing her best cackle there, in case you were wondering.


And then there's Nora, who started out as Sleeping Beauty, hated that, then went to Cinderella, hated THAT, then moved onto an ER doctor, REALLY hated that, and finally ended up going in her pajamas as a tired baby.


Finally there is Jeff. Who just happened to have a Brazillian Gaucho outfit that also doubles as a pirate costume . Add one pirate-esque wig and you have a pretty good stand in for Johnny Depp. Hubba hubba.


And finally there's me. Who didn't really feel like dressing up this year. I had gone through an assortment of ideas in my head, pulled from the costume boxes. But inspiration struck while perusing the last minute aisles of Fred Meyer.

I was asked if my costume was any of the following:

Mall Cop
Character from Beastie Boys video "Sabotage"
Pat (the androgynous character from SNL)
Food Inspector (What?!)

I am in fact a fat, donut eating cop from the 70's.

But probably any of the above would work.



I hope your Halloween was as fun as ours. But how could it be unless you have 4 costume boxes and 8 people to outfit?

I'm going to go lay down. I'm tired just thinking about it.

It was supposed to be about Halloween

Dear Jeff,

This post was supposed to be about Halloween.

About our AWESOME costumes!

But the do-hicky for the camera that you gave me isn't working, any ideas about where the real one is?

Cuz I really, really want to post pictures of you as my favorite pirate ever, and of me in the best cross dressed costume ever!

Can you help me?

Love,

Amy

The reality of reality t.v.

Lets start with the basics, if you don't already know.
Not much about reality television is real. Including home makeover shows.

*gasp* Really? Yes, really.

When my friend told me I should apply for HomeMade Simple, I did so thinking there was no way they would pick us.

Honestly because though we can be messy occasionally, I love to decorate, I'm not that bad at organizing, and in general I think we have it together.

And I realized after this whole process that that is totally true. But they loved the idea of a family with 6 kids. So we got picked.

Now, when the whole crew arrived to start filming, most of them said something to the affect of "why are we in this house?" "this girl doesn't need us, she could work for us."

And while their comments made me feel good, I began to see how t.v. is so scripted that they can make anything they want with the final edits.

But I am not jaded. It was super fun. Everyone was really nice, and they made the experience a great one for us. I would totally do it again, my eyes were just opened to how it all really works.

I now know that no matter how put together, creative, blessed with decorating talent and efficient in their parenting skills someone might be, they would still give the same intro they gave me.

"Amy, a busy mom of six, doesn't have time for decorating and struggles with preparing meals for her family."

Not really true. But that's the angle they wanted, because otherwise, why would I need Homemade Simple?

And though most of our interaction with the Mavens was genuine, our one on one camera interviews with the director were mostly lines fed to us. Not lies at all, but just carefully worded to work with the script. Things like when I said "Now instead of the Odd Couple, they're the Spotless Sisters"

Yeah right, like I would really say something that cheesy. But it worked.

And he made Kate say that she was the cleanest one in the house. She hated saying that! Kate is extremely honest anyway, but she had a hard time with that cuz she would never, ever say something like that. You can tell, if you know her well, when she says it that she is uncomfortable with it.

Julia just rolled with it all. And once we shut down their efforts to make Julia look bad, she had a great time.

Their working theme for the show was the Odd Couple. They really wanted to cast Julia and Kate as complete opposites, which they are, but not in the way they wanted to tell it.

The first attempts were to make Julia look like the lazy, messy girl, and for Kate to be the put together tidy girl. And while they have different ways of organizing, and clutter doesn't bother Julia, the four of us were very uncomfortable with the way they were portraying Julia.

So I began some subterfuge, and when the director would try to get me to say how messy Julia was, I would say instead "she just likes to be organized on the floor", or " julia is so creative and so she likes to have her belongings around her. "

We all just started refusing to play the game until finally Mike caught on, reassured us they would not make Julia look bad, and he stopped trying to get us to say negative things about her.

Because honestly, HomeMade Simple is not an expose. They are not trying to make people look bad, they just want them to look like they are in super need of the Maven's help.

Which is another interesting thing. While all the Maven's have earned their right to be there, with there career paths, their talents and their ideas, none of them could do it without their assistants.

Patrick's assistant Jesse made everything. Patrick would say he made it, but it was really Jesse. Patrick could have made it, but the stars usually are just there for the on camera stuff, and their assistants do everything else. Including the shopping and the putting together of the ideas.

The ideas themselves are a collaborative effort from the whole crew, but the assistants to the mavens do all the real work.

I was amazed by that. I had been an honest believer in what I saw on T.V. It never crossed my mind that the Maven's weren't really there sweating away while they put the ideas together.

And while all the Maven's were super great, my favorite was Candace, the cooking Maven. She really created the recipes for one (which were honestly sooo good), but she was so honoring of who I am as a wife and mother and decorator. She asked me all kinds of questions about how to find the right guy (I told her church is probably the best place to find someone with her same values) and we just really connected and had a great time spending a whole day together cooking.

We also, really did almost nothing for the actual projects. Either they would replace what we had been making with already made items (made by the assistants), or they would undo the stuff we had done and then do it for real.

And the product placement was hilarious. Proctor and Gamble has a guy that travels around with the show, and his entire job is to place P&G products throughout the house, and to make sure the sponsors products get the agreed upon air time. The rest of the time he is on his lap top or playing with his phone.

I want his job.

Probably the hardest part, for me personally, of seeing the show air was that I found it is not a myth that the camera adds ten pounds.

When I first met Wanda, the decorating maven, I was alarmed to see that she was littler in real life then on t.v.

So while I am not little, or skinny by any means, it was hard for me to see myself looking even chubbier. I'm neurotic, what can I say.

And I'm backed up by a few friends and my sister (who see me everyday)who noticed that as well.

So that part of television is real, unfortunately.


But we do love the girls' room. They did a great job and it's functioning well for us. And the Laundry Chest they made is beautiful. They really did make it out of the girls old desk.
Although I can't bring myself to put dirty laundry in it. So for now it is holding blankets.

But now that the show is over, I can post pictures.

This is the before picture of the girls room that I sent the casting director.



And here are the afters-This desk is my favorite thing. They each have their own side, with their own stuff. But on the show they said they found the table at a flea market for 30 dollars. No. They made it. And they made the cork board, even though they said they found it at a garage sale for 10 bucks. They just want you to feel like you can do this project yourself without having to make anything. Which, is probably technically true.





The chairs they really did get at a thrift store.






They said they got the mailboxes second hand, which is only true of one of them. The rest they bought brand new. But it's been a great addition to the girls room. At first I didn't like them, but it really keeps their hands off stuff away from the little kids. Henry and Nora and Anne Marie never even think to look in there.



I love the color on the walls and the bedding. Ashley, Wanda's assistant, really picked bedding that matched each girls personality and personal taste.

And I loved that they took a picture of the dot mural that my sister in law Amy had done for the girls. Everyone, including Wanda and Ashley were sad to paint over it. So they preserved it in the little hanging frames in front of the windows.



All in all, it was fun, and some of us would do it again. But not Kate. She in fact told me she just wants to forget the whole thing.

I think the worst moment was right at the end of the reveal, before the mavens left. In every past season they always give the family 500 dollars at the end. So we kind of expected/hoped for it.

Well, at the end Patrick told us that they left something special for us in the mailboxes. So we thought, ok, this is it.

We walked over to the mailboxes and inside were two pieces of paper that the Maven's had signed with their names and"enjoy your new room!"

So while it was nice, I'm sure our faces showed "um, where's the 500 dollars?"

So that didn't make the final cut. And it was a little bit of a let down, but now after watching season 7, no one got money.

They probably spent about 500 dollars on redoing our two rooms, plus super yummy catered food.

So that was 500 dollars I didn't have for a room redo, and 4 days where I didn't have to cook.
And I didn't have to do any of the real work, and our family got to be on T.V.

So all's well that ends well, I say.

So give me your feedback if you watched it. And tell me that I'm way skinnier in real life, ok?
Yes, I want you to lie to me. That's what friends do, isn't it?